Twilight Junkie

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Rob Says He'll Be 'A Tiny Bit Naked' In Future Roles

‘Twilight’ saga star talks about the need for an actor to relinquish control in order to grow.

Crazed fans, Twilight moms and candy-stealing elephants: It’s all in a day’s work for Robert Pattinson. The actor talks about all of the above in the cover story of next month’s Details, in an article written by screenwriter Jenny Lumet.

Best known for penning “Rachel Getting Married,” Lumet said she first met Pattinson in November of 2008 when she was doing some rewrite work for “Remember Me” and has kept in touch with him through filming of the movie.

The article reveals a variety of interesting and unusual details about Pattinson — his fascination with certain disfiguring diseases, an insatiable hunger built out of not trusting room service food, among others — but beyond that, the interview is one of the most revealing looks at Pattinson to date, largely because it is told through the eyes of a friend.

Pattinson explains about his struggle with fame, and the revelations he had about himself during the time from “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” to “New Moon.”

“When I was 17 until, I don’t know, 20, I had this massive, baseless confidence. This very clear idea of myself and how I would achieve success, which involved making decisions,” Pattinson said. “Having control. Except you have to figure out whether the way you think at 19 or 20 has any value. And eventually I understood, with all that control, which was probably illusory, I wasn’t progressing. So now I’m relinquishing a bit. I’ll be a tiny bit naked.

“Except tonight I won’t,” he added with a laugh, “because it’s f—ing freezing and my b—s will shrivel up.”
With next month’s “Remember Me,” Lumet wrote that it could be the first chance for audiences to see a Robert Pattinson that had truly let go. His character, Tyler, is a young man closed off from the world until he meets a woman (Emilie de Ravin) and has to choose whether to continue separated from the world or to embrace life.

“Tyler is so aware of his actions,” Pattinson said. “But he has no idea whether they’re of any value at all. Can you be a person if you live in the bubble? He’s stuck in the middle. At the same time, he’s lucky to have the choice. Conflict is innate in a lucky person.”

And when asked what attracted him to the role, Pattinson was quick to make the comparisons between himself and Tyler. “I’m a lucky person. Thank God,” he said. “And I’m conflicted. Thank God.”
One aspect of Pattinson’s life that was interestingly absent from the piece was Kristen Stewart. The article didn’t contain a single mention of Pattinson’s fellow “Twilight Saga” star, whose name seems to be mentioned every time his is.

As for the elephants, Pattinson had his run-in with them while he was in discussions with Sean Penn to star in “Water for Elephants.” A female elephant lifted him up into her mouth.

“I was holding on to her head, and as I slowly let go she tightened her grip really carefully until I’m just upside down in her mouth and she’s going through my pockets with her trunk, looking for peppermints,” he recalled. “It was the best day of my life.”